What a great day- having no classes enables me to get more work done from home, including doing my taxes. This is the first year I've been happy to do them because I knew I would be getting a refund. This is the third year I've filed taxes, and the previous two years my mom and John claimed me as a dependent, which was good for them but sucked for me because it meant I always owed taxes.
This year, however, my combined refund and rebate is almost equal to another month's paycheck!!! AHHH! Now I'll have some money to spend on our honeymoon, as well as more to put towards the Roth IRA I'm going to open. I've been on a bit of a finance kick lately; I think Keegan's rubbing off on me, which is a good thing when it comes to saving for retirement because I'm actually thinking about how I can do something with the money I save. Right now all I have is a money market account, which doesn't really do that much for me, although it does earn interest and I can write checks from it. I'm trying to set up an automatic bill pay with my checking account to move some set amount at the beginning of every month to my money market so that I won't be tempted to spend money I really don't need to be spending. If I'm always starting out the month with $300 less than my paycheck, I won't be missing it. That's the theory anyway... but if anyone could recommend some books to read on the subject, that would be appreciated :-)
I've really become a multi-tasker (as far as reading goes) this semester. For example, right now I'm simultaneously reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I know, I'm a loser), Stay Mad for Life by Jim Cramer (it's about investing), the November issue of National Geographic (I'm really behind on my NG readings), and a textbook of collected articles about self-healing polymers, along with other papers I find helpful for my review. The review paper is definitely the most important, but there's only so much scientific reading a person can stand before they need to switch to something a little less mind-intensive.
1 comment:
The two best books on personal finance that I've read are:
Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties by Beth Kobliner
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
The former is very general and helpful for just getting started, and the latter is, as the title suggests, really only about investing. I can lend either or both to you if you'd like - I think I have both of them here in Durham.
I'm debating whether or not to go to the Summit conference over the tax seminar tomorrow. I finished my taxes this weekend and I really really enjoyed the conference today...
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